Fun, Fit and 60!

work can be hazardous to your health!

I'm working full time right now as opposed to 4 hours a day starting at 1PM previously.
That's good, of course, for the livelihood but it plays havoc with my riding (and blogging) schedule! :-(
Also, I was feeling really sick last night (chills, sweats, aches) so I bagged any thought of a ride this AM for safety sake but I think I'm ok.
Right now I'm working on a video of a ride which I will post soon. I thought I had it done but when I uploaded it to YouTube, they said it was too long (15 minutes). I thought the length limit was 20 minutes but it's 10 so I'll have to edit it down and redo the narration. It really was too long (boring). Maybe it's still boring! :-)
Except for me. ;-)

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What I’m thankful for…

I'm thankful for a lot more important things than I'm going to list here. But since this is about cycling, skiing and fitness, that's what I'm going to tell you about. So, yeah, I know this is kind of a materialistic list. :-)

This Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 2008, I'm thankful for:

• The health and capability, at age 60, to ride a bike and ski
• Mrs. MTBMan1, who got me to downhill ski and took up cycling to be with me and likes it
  
• My vintage Raleigh Olympian road bike





• My rigid Ross Mt.St.Helens "mountain" bike



• My Trek 4100 mtn bike



• My "buff" multifunction headgear



• My $22 bargain Optic-Nerve glasses with switchable lenses



• My Pearl-Izumi padded fingerless gloves



• cold-weather tights (comfy!)
• cycling socks



• SmartWool socks (pricey but worth it)



• Shimano cycling shoes and clipless pedals that I got for $20 on craig's list! (love a bargain!)




• Pearl-Izumi Am-Fib shoe covers (nice quality - keep the tootsies toasty)



• Matt and Mad Dog Bicycles, literally 1 block down the street from me. How cool is that?
• All new drive train on the Raleigh (smooth!)

... and much more! but i've got to start getting ready for the day.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

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Yesterday’s route

Happy Thanksgiving!
I probably won't be riding today 'cause we are going to visit Mrs. MTBMan1's rels for the day.
Since I forgot yesterday, here is the new route I rode when testing out my homebrew camera mount. By the way, my camera is not a video cam but just a regular Canon digital cam with video capability.
I can only get 30 seconds of 640x480 video at a clip but with a 2GB memory card I can hold quite a few 30 second clips!

Here's yesterday's route!

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My Camera Mount

I made this camera mount for the bike handle bars from a relector mount I got from Matt at Mad Dog.
I tried it out today but it needs some work. It tends to loosen up very quickly and then the camera won't stay pointed straight.
Here are some clips from today's ride.


Starting up Orchard Hill



I'm not that interested in the house...my camera mount has loosened up and the camera keeps wanting to point to the right.


Still going up Orchard Hill


A little respite


Ah, finally, the other side!


I intended to do only 1 hour, about 15 miles or so but it was really nice. 32° and no wind. Then, when the sun came out ... wow ... it was like spring. So I kept going. No performance objectives. Just fun. I'm enjoying it.

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Beat the train!

Today was a mere 27° and no wind so my 1hr 10min ride was pretty comfortable.
In fact, near the end, I felt like I was just getting warmed up and could keep going.
I was shooting for a 1 hour ride so I did pretty good. I suppose I could try pushing it a little faster and it would be 1 hour.
There were 3 train crossings on this ride. As I approached the 3rd crossing the lights started flashing and the bars started to come down but I was close enough to get through before they were completely down. Ha, ha!
Later this morning when I was riding in my car there was a news story on the radio that a man and his two young daughters were hit twice by a train (or 2 trains) on the same set of tracks not a mile from where I passed by! This happened yesterday and miraculously they were not seriously hurt!

I smelled people burning coal for the first time this year. Most people burn wood. It reminded me of when I lived in a cabin in Nederland, CO. I burned coal in an old rusted out stove. Not too safe what with carbon monoxide danger. I used to get the body of that stove glowing cherry red before I went to bed so it would be warm when I got up. Sometimes, in the morning, I would throw in fresh coal and then some kerosene on the dying embers. The kerosene would vaporize, I would flop the top lid shut and then drop a lit match into a hole in the top. BLANG! Ha, ha! Not too smart!

So, yeah, an hour ride is pretty good at this temp with no wind. I had a good time. I'm especially pleased that my drink is not freezing up in the Camelbak. It was a problem last year with plain water.

Today's route I call "Bullock Loop - Longer" and here it is:

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One thing I DON’T like about cycling ….

One thing I DON'T like about cycling ....
The hills I can handle. Dogs, cars, cold, heat, no problem.
But the WIND! The wind, I don't like.
There's nothing quite so demoralizing as grinding away in your lowest gear DOWNHILL with a relentless wind in your face.
Today I went out intending to do a 2 hour ride.
It was 24° but the wind was gusting to 35mph. I think the temp would have been OK if not for the wind. That really gets to me. So I cut it short by about 15 minutes and 4 miles.

Amazingly, the drink tube on my Camelbak didn't freeze up. Something is working as good anti-freeze in my lemon juice, sugar and salt blend. However, the feed on my bottle DID freeze up. The drink in the bottle was sort of slushy but drinkable. I just think a piece of slush clogged the top.

Maybe it's time to start working out at the gym and xc skiing. OK. Bring on the snow!

I've also been working on the famous "workbench". I found a bunch of discarded 2x4s last year and finally I'm getting around to doing this bench. I can see why they threw them away! Check these pix.
You can see the components go everywhich way but straight. Believe it or not all my dimensions are accurate and my joints are square but these 2x4s have some nasty bends in them.

From 2008_11_22

I bolted some of the pieces together to try to "force" them straight. Uh-uh. Nothing doing.

From 2008_11_22

This leg won't touch the ground when the other 3 are. (Yes I know it's not square. I didn't cut that one. That's how it came and I didn't have enough length to cut it square.)

From 2008_11_22

My solution .... shim the back. Works for me! :-)

From 2008_11_22

This one is my fault. I don't understand what's wrong with my head. Basically, I needed to cut 3" from the depth pieces to accomodate the thickness of the 2 cross pieces but only cut 1-1/2". Well, I'll just cut another 1-1/2" off it.

From 2008_11_22

Here's my first project waiting for the bench to be completed. I need to swap out the heel plates on these xc skis. Got these out of somebody's trash. Sweet!

From 2008_11_22

By the way, here's today's route:

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Too cold, too far? - Redux. Post ride analysis.

I've been thinking about that last post/ride. I'm sure the cold was a factor but here's the scenario:
Because it was so cold (mid to low 20s) and I haven't yet solved the cold-feet problem, I decided I would probably only ride for an hour. Based on that, I didn't eat any breakfast before leaving and I filled my Camelbak with plain water and not carb/electrolyte replenishment drink (salted lemonade). This is a good plan for an hour ride because you are likely to burn more fat this way but longer than that, you need the carb calories.
After setting out, however, I decided to ride for a longer period of time because I didn't feel that cold and in fact, the ride wound up being 3 hours.
I only had a Clif Mojo bar with me (200 calories) which I ate at the 1 hour mark.
Clearly not enough to fuel me for the entire distance.
I felt like I was in a trance when I got back.
Probably not a "bonk" but getting there!
If there's a moral here I'm not sure what it is. I want to say "stick to the plan" but part of the fun of cycling is just setting off and winging it depending on how you feel and what happens on the way or just a whim.
I guess under the conditions it was just a poor judgement call.
I think a good option would have been to carry 2 Clif bars, fill my Camelbak with water and carry a spare bottle with the homebrew lemonade. That way, I would have been more ready for a change of plan.

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Too cold, too far?

Today's ride really drained me. I think it may be the cold 'cause I don't usually have a problem with ride I did. It was 38 miles and not terribly hilly, not usually a problem for me.
Initially my fingers were cold with my ski gloves and liners but they warmed up pretty well after about an hour of moderate zone 3 riding.
My feet were OK in the beginning with 2 socks and insulated shoe covers and started to get cold after an hour or so. At that point, I stopped for a Clif bar and they warmed up a little. I think the cold feet have more to do with circulation than the cold alone because they get numb/cold even in the summer after awhile.
There was a bit of a head wind in places but not consistently.
I had intended to only do 1, maybe 2 hours because of the cold but I wound up doing 3.
I felt really spent afterwards, more than I thought I should.
My right shoulder, which is a chronic problem, really hurt on this ride. It's been hurting at night too. It bothers me mostly when standing out of the saddle or changing my hand position. I try to be careful not to pull on it but it only takes one wrong move to set it off.
My new compact crankset and freewheel are performing admirably. Very smooth shifting. I am having to get used to some new gear combinations because of the lower geared small chainring.
Here is the route, one of my regulars:

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The Unthinkable!

Today, Mrs. MTBMan1 will be out all day 8:30AM to 8:30PM, I have nothing scheduled and I'm not going to ride.
That's right. I said NOT GOING TO RIDE!
And that's not because it's raining.
I was actually looking forward to a long ride down the Mo-Hud Bike Path in the rain. I like the rain (my close friends will attest to this.)
It's just that I'm still sore. Not real sore but ...
Well, two days ago as I related in this post, I was starting to think I was getting a wee bit burned out.
I have got away from the good advice of Dr.Gabe Mirkin who says that you should exercise hard, then chill out or exercise real easy until the soreness goes away. The soreness is nature's way of telling you to let the muscles heal (and grow stronger).
So, in spite of it being an ideal day to ride a loooong ride (this is killing me) 'twould be a mark of maturity to stay home and recoop.
It doesn't have to be a total loss bike-wise. I can work on my project bike, an Iron Horse "mountain" bike that I picked off the side of the road (the sign said free and the lady was right there smiling).


I know it's not much of a bike and I don't want to put a lot of money into it but I though it was a good one to practice on without having to worry about ruining it or getting bored and chucking the whole thing.
I'm going to take it all apart and totally clean it.
Currently, I'm working on the bottom bracket which sounds and feels nasty.

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All new drive train!

Last post, I mentioned losing my crank on a ride. Well the square hole in it was rounded so it needed to be replaced and you can't just replace one crank, you have to replace both and the other crank is part of the front gears so it's a crankset that has to be replaced and the new crankset wouldn't work with the old bottom bracket plus it was worn out anyway so that had to be replaced and it turned out that the chain was shot and that in turn had worn out the gears in the rear so the cogs had to be replaced .... <take breath here>
Whew.
Cost about $170. More than I paid for the bike.

I had Matt at Mad Dog Bicycles get me a compact crankset which means a smaller small chainring for easier climbing.

The crankset is a Shimano Sora and it's pretty cool and here it is:


I took it out this morning for a short test run and it shifts very smoothly.
Matt did a great job. Everything works perfectly. He even remounted my cadence sensor on the new crank and adjusted it so I didn't have to do anything this morning.
The rear cog set is a Shimano MF-TZ20.

I didn't test it on any big hills 'cause I really needed a break today. I've been overdoing it lately and I'd like to take a nice long ride this weekend.
I'll have to see what Charles is doing.

Charles:


I also replaced the 6 broken spokes on the ROSS MTB rear wheel.
I bought 10 spokes from Matt at a buck apiece. They are black instead of silver but what do I care?
I'm thrilled that I did this repair myself. Wasn't too bad. I had the spoke wrench and the thing to remove the cogs. I'm not too concerned about absolute truing of the wheel. As long as it doesn't rub the brake pads and all the spokes are tight, I'm fine. I spent a little time degreasing the cogs since I had it off. There is one broken tooth on it but it still works fine. I wouldn't know it but to look at it.

The Ross Mt. St.Helens (kind of a pretentious name, don't you think?)

From ROSS bike

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